bookofdanielvol2 | Recent Entries

Daylight savings always throws me off. I have a hard enough time with mornings when everything *isn't* an hour earlier. As with many, I'd be more than happy to see the entire practice abolished, but probably unlike most, I'd prefer to stick with the winter time setup. I don't care too much if it gets dark a little earlier in the summer if it means I can keep some semblance of a healthy sleep cycle.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: New Order | True Faith

A very strange dream last night.

I was in a church, which I assumed (in the dream) to be the one I used to go to when I was very young (Methodist church in Coxsackie). For some reason there was a pro wrestling show going inside there. I don't recall the specifics of it, but it involved a cage match of some sort. After the show I was walking around the main area of the church with my parents, who were just suddenly there. We were looking at the organ, which seemed to be cobbled together from parts of other organs. At this point I mentioned the origin of the phrase “pulling out all the stops.” As we were going to leave there were smaller organs in the corners of the room, and two more by the entrance. I also recall at some point looking through large, clear windows near the tops of the walls.

For some reason we went outside and then came back in, and I went to some small, bare stone-walled rooms that I think were in the basement (I'm not sure if my parents were still with me at this point). Then I had to go to the bathroom and made my way to one in the main part of the church; it was an enormous, fancy room at least as big as the main sanctuary, with marble and wood trim. At that point I woke up.

Even though this probably doesn't mean anything at all, I can identify where at least some parts of this came from:
-I'm not sure where the idea of being in the church I went to as a kid came from; probably just a repressed memory.
-The wrestling show, and particularly the idea of a cage match, probably comes from watching the annual Elimination Chamber show earlier this week. Also, the last live event I went to - an independent show, just before COVID - was just a little more than a year ago.
-Both of my parents being there was a bit strange, though my dad - who passed in 2017 - does show up pretty regularly.
-The clear windows at the tops of the walls might be from the Terrapin restaurant in Rhinebeck, which I drive past pretty often (and sometimes patronize). It's in a former church building and some of the windows that presumably used to be stained glass are now clear.
-The bare stone-walled rooms may possibly be from playing Castle of the Winds recently.
-The design of the giant, ornate restroom is a mystery, but the concept is just because I woke up really having to go to the bathroom.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Neil Young | Tell Me Why

For awhile I was a record collector, but I haven't kept up that hobby in the last decade and I'm left with way too many of them at this point. I think, unfortunately, that sometime soon I'm going to have to go through and pare down the collection. Unfortunately I probably won't have time to do that before my next move, but afterwards I'm thinking I can probably get rid of at least 1/3 to 1/2 of what I have. I'll obviously keep a lot of favorites, and anything that's really rare/interesting - my original pressing of the formerly-out-of-print Neil Young On the Beach album isn't going anywhere, nor are my signed Strawbs albums, for instance - but I think I'm at a point where, with streaming options available, there's a lot I can probably part with and not miss too much.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Ultimate Spinach | (Ballad of) The Hip Death Goddess

Yesterday I found a downloadable version of the old game Castle of the Winds that works on Windows 10. The game was released into the public domain years ago, but the last computer I had that was capable of running it is long dead and it won't work on modern OSes (I don't think it even works on Win7, let alone 10). It looks like the download makes it work by running a copy of Windows 3.11 preloaded with the game in DosBox.

I'm very happy to have found this one. It's a great illustration of how high production values and great graphics, while nice bonuses, don't automatically make a great game. Castle of the Winds has barely any animation, graphics mainly made up of Windows icon files and no sound whatsoever, but the gameplay is fun and engaging and that was enough for me to put hours into it in the '90s, even alongside such current options as Final Fantasy VI and VII (the former of which is among my all-time favorite games), and probably will again even with some of my more recent favorite RPG experiences - the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series - available. If you don't mind ancient games with slight learning curves, I recommend checking it out.

Current Mood: good
Current Music: St. Vincent | Digital Witness

There are few things better than a good shave after four or five days without one, when one has time to enjoy the ritual of it. My first decade of shaving was wasted with electric razors of varying qualities, then spent several more with disposable Bic razors. Now I shave like our grandfathers did - double-edged safety razor with Wilkinson Sword blades, brush and shaving soap, though as a modern concession I still use gel aftershave. When there's time to enjoy the ritual it really is one of life's simple pleasures.

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Steve Roach | Seeking

Apparently there's a big controversy in my hometown over the high school changing their team name/mascot from "Indians." I wasn't into team sports, I didn't peak in high school, and I haven't been in high school for 20 years, so I don't really care all that much about school spirit or tradition, and frankly it should have been changed years (if not decades) ago anyway.

I assume they'll end up being the "Coxsackie-Athens Owls," derived from the supposed meaning of the town name, and that's fine with me. Owls are pretty badass. But they could go with something else Coxsackie's known for, like being the "Coxsackie-Athens Viruses" or "Coxsackie-Athens Inmates."

Or they could go back into the town's history and resurrect the "Coxsackie Fat Men's Baseball Group," a team that really did exist in the 1870s.

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Rainbow | Stargazer

Two nights ago I had a dream that I was mowing the lawn at my parent’s house, as I often did as a teenager. The dream wasn’t clear as to what age I was supposed to be. When I got to the corner of the yard, near a tree and the edge of the road, I found that I was able to peel the lawn back like a roll of astroturf, and uncovered a hidden underground chamber. Inside was a cache of all the toys I used to have when I was younger and no longer owned - most of the toys I remember seeing in there dream were fictional, but there are definitely some things like that that I wish I still had (the game Forbidden Bridge, for instance). And a few that I’ve managed to recover as gag gifts, as well (notably the ‘80s Mr. Potatohead that still came with a pipe). Even if the objects in the dream were mostly not real, it did leave me with a feeling of having rediscovered something important.

All of this means, most likely... absolutely nothing.

Current Mood: blank
Current Music: Travis | A Ghost

I did pretty well with my Goodreads reading challenge in the second half of 2020, ending up with an even 30 books for the year against a challenge goal of 25. This year I set the goal for 30, and have already clocked in 7, so assuming I'm able to keep up that pace I should clear the 2021 goal with no issue. (On the other hand, I'm woefully behind on movies, only having watched 5 this year to date!)

Currently I'm about halfway through Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, which covers the history of the New Hollywood movement of American auteurs that started in the late 1960s (Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate largely set the stage, with Easy Rider bringing it to the mainstream and confirming the end of the traditional studio system) and lasted until about 1980 (with the failure of Heaven's Gate). The book is exhaustive and, with a relatively small print size, feels longer than its 440 pages of text, but overall it's very interesting and certainly a good way find movies to add to my watch queue.

I also recently read Jean Shepherd's collection The Ferrari in the Bedroom. This was the third of the four collections of his work published during his lifetime (preceded by In God We Trust: All Other's Pay Cash and Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters, and followed by A Fistful of Fig Newtons), but the last one I hadn't yet read, and unfortunately Ferrari is by far my least favorite of them. The first two Shepherd books were marked primarily by coming-of-age/nostalgia stories, many of which served as the basis for the movies A Christmas Story, My Summer Story (aka It Runs in the Family) and Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss, and while the third book, Ferrari, contains a handful of those, it's more focused on essays railing about modern-day (for the 1970s) popular culture tropes. There's some amusement to be found, but overall a lot of it comes across as dated and "nothing-we-haven't-heard-before." Fortunately, the fourth book, Fistful, is a return to form and contains a good mix of coming-of-age stories, college and army stories and some cultural essays. Ferrari is the one of the four Shepherd collections I'm considering not keeping in my permanent collection, but it does have at least two really good stories - "The Indy 500" and "Harold's Super Service" - so I may end up hanging onto it for those after all.

A particular highlight among books I've read thus far this year is Machines of Another Era, the debut collection of Bess Winter. The stories all in some way deal with a looking back toward the past, whether that be just into the personal history of the lead character, or looking back into an entirely different period (often the 19th or early 20th century). I discovered its existence and subsequently bought it after hearing Winter read an excerpt of "Talking Dolls" on the Smithsonian's Sidedoor podcast (an episode about Thomas Edison's early talking dolls of the 1890s) and will look forward to this author's next work.

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: 16 Horsepower | Prison Shoe Romp

At one point during the early days of the pandemic I'd entertained the idea of starting a YouTube series, with a title along the lines of "Dan's Objects of Interest" and a presentational format somewhat similar to Stuart Ashen's. I'd basically be showcasing, as the title suggests, interesting objects I've come across - ranging from antiquities like, say, my 1790s copy The Adventures of Roderick Random or my 1870s "Boss Tweed" bank, to more recent curiosities like some of my more rare vintage video games or lost '80s or '90s fads (see entry title), and discussing the history behind them. Somewhere between a serious antiquarian show and a somewhat humorous nostalgia series. I even went as far as buying a tripod for my iPhone for the purpose of filming.

Of course as yet I haven't actually gone through with it. I don't think I'd be able to be able to maintain a regular video schedule, for one thing, and I'd have to learn a fair amount about video editing to be able to make anything really worthwhile. It's possible that I might go back to the idea at some point, but it might be just as worthwhile to look into doing these sorts of things in article form - even if just for this Dreamwidth account. Writing tends to be one of my stronger skills anyway.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: The Rolling Stones | One Hit (To the Body)

Looking out my office window at the beginning of my lunch break, and it's snowing again. It's not too bad today, and obviously other parts of the country are currently having far worse times with winter weather, but the frequency of snow over the last two weeks makes me think of how different my perception of the season is now vs. when I was much younger. As a kid, the possibility of snow meant the possibility of days off from school and fun, outdoor activities. Now it means having to cancel and change plans, having to drive through inclement weather, sometimes in the dark, and extra work both at work and at home. I do at least now have a Subaru to negotiate the roads when I have to go out; it's a little less nerve-wracking than driving in a blizzard in, say, an old K Car, as I did my first year of college.

I don't mind the cold so much, as long as it's not absolute zero, and the scenery is nice, but due to the logistics winter has gone from my favorite season as a kid, to my least favorite as an adult. Give me a cool, cloudy fall day anytime.

Current Mood: apathetic
Current Music: Squalloscope | Z-E-P-H-Y-R

Valentine's Day. Sure, it's as commercial and cliche as its detractors say, and in my single days I was never exactly the Moody Bluesian "lonely man [who] cries out for love and has none," usually just opting to ignore it. But when you are with the right person, it is a nice feeling. As Jessica sleeps beside me on this Sunday morning, our second Valentine's together, I realize that I am pretty lucky.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: The Tallest Man on Earth | It Will Follow the Rain

This coming September will mark the 20th anniversary of my old Livejournal account. I still miss the LJ glory days - the creativity, community and atmosphere is something I've never found a replacement for in internet-land. But from what I can tell so far, Dreamwidth seems like a reasonable facsimile.

I'm certainly in a very different place than I was when I started my Livejournal. At the beginning of 2001 I was a 17-year-old, a week from 18, recent high-school graduate, working as a part-time video clerk and just embarking somewhat aimlessly on a fine arts college career.

Now at 37, I have three degrees, an 18-year-and-counting career in the historic-site field, five years' experience as an adjunct professor of history (only on hold due to the pandemic), a wonderful partner, and am, hopefully, a soon-to-be homeowner.

The world, of course, looks very different too; when I started the Livejournal, 9/11 was a week or two away; at the time of starting this Dreamwidth account we've been a year under COVID. And there have certainly been a lot of potholes on the road in between.

I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to use this account for long-term. Perhaps occasional thoughts-of-the-moment, and maybe some media reviews and other writings. My annual year-end movie/book list, which has for some time been the only thing I still used my LJ account for, will probably also get posted here. I guess we'll see what all shakes out.

I'll probably change the default profile picture here soon, but for now, in homage, I'm using the same user icon I used through most of my LJ account's history. To be 17 again.

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Music: Strawbs | Heartbreak Hill